Cougars

I thought I would end up sticking with the NaNoWriMo prompts to find something to write about here, but today, I decided to go with something that came to me while I was in the car on the way home from work today.

We were stuck in traffic (of course), behind this white car. It was a Cougar. Back in the day, when I was a young girl living in Choctaw, Oklahoma, I had a great bike. It was shiny and red, and it was a 'cougar' - at least, that's what was painted on the side in big, white letters. They were nifty mix between cursive and printing, and they had pretty blobby bits on the ends of all of the letters. It was an awesome bike. I used to ride it in circles around the house (it was a big house, so it took a bit of time). I would ride slowly around the front and sides of the house, but as soon as I turned the corner into the back yard, out of sight of whoever was in the front, I would whisper, "Go Cougar!" and pretend that the bike and I turned into a cougar. I would pedal as fast as I could, pretending that I was this huge cat racing across the yard. As soon as I hit the next corner, I would whisper, "Stop!" and slow back down to my normal speed. I could do this for hours (or until Mom called me in for dinner).

I must have had a great imagination as a child. I also used to pretend that I had a twin sister named Jennifer. She looked just like me, and acted almost like me, except that we had different favourite characters in the Sweet Valley Twins books (I liked Elizabeth, she liked Jessica), and she was very shy, which is why she didn't come out to play very much. Every once in a while, I would randomly go into the house and change outfits and come out pretending I was Jennifer. I would pretend that I had no idea about any of the conversations that I had had with friends earlier, and it was a lot of fun. I think we had different favourite colours, too.... I liked blue and she liked pink. I don't recall ever trying it around my parents, though, and Jennifer wasn't your standard imaginary friend - I didn't have conversations with her, and I didn't actually think she was real. I'm pretty sure that she wasn't another personality of mine - I was very much aware of the fact that she was pretend. I like to think of her as an early foray into acting.

On a completely unrelated note, my gaydar is totally busted. If anyone knows where I can get a new one, or how I can fix mine, please tell me!!